IT was a policy platform at the last Bathurst Regional Council election and a higher Chifley Dam wall looks set to feature again at the local government poll.
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Robert "Stumpy" Taylor's Back Bathurst ticket says it will make increasing the capacity for the dam a priority if it is successful at the December election.
The council election was to have been held in September, but has been delayed again due to COVID.
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Councillor Warren Aubin made a higher dam wall one of his three priorities when he led a five-person ticket, which included Mr Taylor, at the 2017 election.
He expressed his frustration earlier this year when he said "two or three years' worth of water" had gone over the Chifley Dam spillway in a week.
Cr Aubin has also recently called for a new dam to be built on the Fish River to give Bathurst better water security for its growing population.
Mr Taylor, who announced his ticket earlier this month for the 2021 election, said raising the wall should be at the top of the list for a new-look council.
"We know 12,000 more people are set to call our community home over the next decade - Bathurst is growing, it always has been," he said. "In a perfect world, the dam can only supply around 55,000 people and is set to reach its limit in the mid-2030s.
"There are plans in place to harvest stormwater and build a pipeline from Winburndale Dam, but whilst that's an important part of the solution, it isn't enough."
Chifley Dam got below 30 per cent before the most recent drought in Bathurst broke.
It hit capacity in September last year for the first time in four years and has been full for months.
"When the Chifley Dam wall was raised by five metres in the early 2000s, it effectively doubled capacity," Mr Taylor said.
"We'd be in real trouble if that project didn't go ahead at the time."
But not everyone is a fan.
Ecologist and Charles Sturt University identity David Goldney has been vocal in urging Bathurst Regional Council to consider alternative projects to increase the water security for the city.
He wants council to offer subsidies for households to install rainwater tanks and to build a pipeline from Chifley Dam to Bathurst to prevent water lost in evaporation, among other projects.
And Cr John Fry has made plain his opposition to a higher dam wall, calling the proposal an "uninformed dream".
